eZine

Number 205

Some people are less than productive because they suffer from chronic stress. Perhaps, throughout each workday, they are bombarded with difficult requests and demands from bosses, customers and colleagues.

But other low achievers may have a different kind of problem. They experience too few challenges. Nothing exciting happens in the course of a day, and they feel less and less creative. Even if they’re busy, these folks aren’t getting enough stimulation to stay interested. They are bored.

On the job, unproductive boredom seems to be the opposite of what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has called “flow.” You’re in flow when your work is so absorbing you lose track of time. It’s like you are playing a game that is so much fun you forget about everything else.

Csikszentmihalyi, who has been studying the satisfying flow state for decades, describes it as a time when “action follows upon action according to an internal logic that seems to need no conscious intervention by the actor.”

You are more likely to find yourself in flow, and not at all bored, when:

• Your skills match the level of the challenges you face. Tasks that are too easy are boring, while those that are too difficult may lead to anxiety.
• Something about the work is intrinsically rewarding.
• You have clear goals. And,
• You have some sense of control over the situation and the outcome.

Are you finding your job to be tedious? If so, don’t wait to be rescued. Do something about it. Maybe it’s time to shake things up, but in a good way, with anti-boredom strategies like these:

• Create challenges. If your work doesn’t feel stimulating, find ways to enrich it with new levels of complexity and challenge. Try creating games as you pursue tedious tasks. One study reported that long-distance truck drivers who played mental games, like counting passing objects, reported little boredom and were also safer drivers. Sometimes you can pep things up by seeing how fast you can race through tiresome activities.
• Engage with others. Particularly for extroverts, isolation can feel boring. Look for opportunities to broaden your circle and interact with others. And, wherever you are, take the time to really focus on the people around you. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that a retail clerk might make her work more interesting, and at the same time improve service, by striking up genuine conversations with customers.
• Vary your routines. Make an effort to shift your habitual patterns. Flow is associated with exploration, and even simple changes can make you feel more alive. Try new ways of doing your projects, look for new tools or systems, and rearrange your schedule. If you don’t know what to do, just try something different. And maybe it’s time to plan an adventure vacation? Or at least a special lunch?
• Learn something. Research suggests that being in flow helps us forge new neural connections. And it works both ways. If you regularly learn new things, you are less likely to be bored. So take a class or pick up a skill. Even if you’re studying something not directly related to your job, it can help you become more alert and innovative.
• Hang out with do-ers. Boredom can be contagious, and if you spend time with passive, disengaged people you may start to feel the same way. Look for opportunities to be with active people. You’ll feel more stimulated if your life includes folks who pursue worthwhile, interesting activities.
• Exercise. Get up and move around at the office, walk as often as you can, and build regular exercise into your life. People who are physically active are less likely to bog down in ennui.
• Journal. You are more likely to feel bored if you lack self-awareness and tend to be out of touch with your own emotional state. Writing about your thoughts, observations and activities can help you to develop emotional intelligence. The more you notice each day, the more interesting your life may become.

Number 203

There's you, the essential person you are.

Obviously related, but not quite the same, is you -- the professional who shows up on the job and makes a contribution.

And then there's your professional brand.

Originally a "brand" referred to a word or symbol indicating the owner or producer of a product. Ranchers used hot irons to brand cattle. And back when soap was usually just called "soap," Pears Soap was named after the barber who invented a gentle cleaning bar.

As it's used today, the term "brand" isn't the same as a "brand name." In a branding effort, marketers try to distinguish a product, highlighting how its attributes differ from those of competitors. But a "brand" is an even broader concept than that, because it encompasses not just the qualities of a product but also how customers perceive those qualities.

Your professional brand is a reflection not only of you and what you do, but also of others' assessment of your expertise, your work product and your character. Your brand can greatly impact your career opportunities and satisfaction. And yet it might be quite different from either the real you or the high achiever you strive to be when you are on the job.

In other words, even if you are a good person, and you work really hard, there's no guarantee you'll have a strong brand that differentiates you from the competition and brings you the career success you deserve. So smart professionals manage their brands, using strategies like these:

• Do research. When marketers want to pump up a product brand, they start by getting a handle on how the product is currently perceived. They may conduct surveys or find other ways to collect customers' views. If you want to gauge your brand, gather feedback from other people. On the job, this might take the form of a "360 review" in which your bosses, employees and colleagues are quizzed by a third party about your performance. A simple approach is for you to simply ask people who rely on your work for suggestions about how you might be even more helpful. Or you might find a way to have one of your work products evaluated by the people who use it.
• Promote your work. It is not enough to build expertise and do good work. The next step is sharing the news about what you've been doing and learning. This might mean giving speeches, writing articles or sending out progress reports. Or you can show what you know in more subtle ways, like by offering your services to someone who needs your help. If you become more collaborative, you may have more opportunities to show off gracefully, by shining a light on the achievements of your whole team.
• Look in the mirror. People are more likely to regard you as successful if you present yourself as a person who is doing well. In a professional world, your aura of success is impacted by your personal style. Whether you like it or not, people are influenced by the way you dress, and speak, and carry yourself. If you feel like it's time for a bit of a makeover, look around for people who appear energetic, polished and powerful. And consider small steps that might help you acquire some of their gloss.
• Shape your online presence. The way you show up in an online search has become vital to your professional reputation. If you want to set up a meeting or call, you must assume the person you're trying to reach will Google your name. You can't get around this by doing nothing. Your employer, your university and maybe your competitors have mentioned you somewhere. And your absence from the blogosphere and other professional arenas may be regarded as saying a lot about you. So if you don't have a social media strategy, consider starting with these basics:
  • Set up your LinkedIn profile. You don't have to complete everything. You can project your brand to the world simply by typing in a few sentences in the summary section.
  • Post your work. Do a little writing about your area of expertise. Finding places to show off your work and share your insights has never been easier. Online groups are eager to attract comments and many blog sites welcome guest posts.
  • Curate. You can show what you know without creating original work. If you choose to be a "curator," it's considered legit to collect and republish others' articles, photos and infographics on a site like Scoop.it (of course with full attribution).

Number 204

It's not just that you're getting too much email. A bigger deal might be the way it can ruin your mood and change the structure of your work life. As I listen to clients, I hear growing frustration about how other people's poor email etiquette can drain your energy. Would your days be better without email abuses like these?

• An endless stream from the boss. Some people use email not so much as a way to communicate but as a form of thinking out loud. "Sandra" said that in a few hours her boss might send four or five emails, with changing views about a single topic, to her whole team. Sandra understood that he's an external processor and was using stream-of-conscious emails as a way to examine critical issues. But nobody knew which message would be safe to ignore, so the boss's ruminations created chaos. Fortunately, Sandra convinced him to adopt a new habit of exploring his thoughts in a single evolving document that he doesn't send out until he has lived with it for a day or two. But other bosses aren't so willing to change.
• No time off. Often it's not just the boss who doesn't know how to stop the constant email flow. In too many offices, it never seems to end, and you're left with no time to recharge. "Amanda" complained about "nonstop, 24/7 emailing, and then follow-up texts to ask, 'Did you get my email.' Because everyone does work from home, even in the evening and on weekends, the work/personal lines have blurred. Now everyone is always working."
• Prose that makes no sense. There's a difference between being informal and being incomprehensible. A lot of people are sick of receiving colleagues' unedited messages. Unclear messages can lead to misunderstandings or require time to sort out. And recipients may feel a bit insulted when you don't take the time to proofread and be clear.
• Big boring text blocks. Lengthy paragraphs, full of too much detail, are tough to read and don't work well in email. Effective messages:
  • Start with a descriptive subject line.
  • Are brief.
  • Use dot points or another outline format, and
  • Can be easily skimmed.
• Over-copying. People are tired of sorting through messages they didn't need to see in the first place. It's so easy to hit "reply all," but it creates such waste in the longer run.
• Tone-deaf prose. Let's remind each other that it's difficult to perceive the tone of words you send via email. Humor can fall flat and simple declarative sentences can sound rude or mean. The problem is exacerbated when insensitive senders engage with over-sensitive message recipients. So you senders: reread your messages, particularly when delicate issues may be involved. And you readers: lighten up -- it's probably not about you.
• Negativity. In addition to folks who sound more harsh than intended, there are others whose negative commentary is even more wearing. One category is the whiners, who find little ways to tuck complaints into message after message. Even more troubling are folks who write in anger. Email is not a good medium for expressing emotion, and angry messages can brew up storms in an instant.
• Forgetting how to call or visit. When anger or other emotions are involved, and when issues are complicated or delicate, email may not be the most effective means of communication. Some things are difficult to write in a few quick graphs. A better approach may be to pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
• And those annoying little things: Aside from the bigger issues, some people don't want you to send:
  • Too-long signatures, particularly those with inappropriate inspirational quotes, dense and unnecessary legalese, and logos or other images that arrive as attachments.
  • Automatic out-of-the-office responses when you're briefly away, and
  • Chain mail, even if it's funny.

There's no easy way to reduce the burden of email, but three strategies may make it more manageable:

• Develop protocols. You're not the only one who feels this way. You and your colleagues can save time and aggravation if you work out an agreement on techniques and etiquette for shaping your email exchanges. Consider topics like message formats and length, subject lines, mass cc-ing and weekend policies.
• Review in batches. There’s evidence that you’ll make better use of your time if you don’t look at email every few minutes. Some experts say the most effective way to process email is to work through your inbox at various designated times throughout the day. When you check for mail constantly, you interrupt more important tasks and waste time switching gears.
• Don't let it get to you. You can't control other people, but you are in charge of how you respond to them. If you feel like email is driving you crazy, maybe it's time to get serious about managing your stress level. Deep breathing and other mindfulness exercises are just one of the paths that might help you bring things down a notch.

Number 202

Perhaps best known for his book, "Emotional Intelligence," psychologist and prolific writer Daniel Goleman has had an enormous impact on how organizations understand leadership. In "Focus - The Hidden Driver of Excellence," Goleman says leaders, and all the rest of us, must learn to better direct our attention if we want to get things done and live full lives.

Focusing our attention in the midst of constant distractions is a big challenge in today's workplace. But neuroscience and other research demonstrates we can learn how to focus more clearly. It turns out that attention can be trained, like a muscle. Work it well and it can grow. "Focus" is not a how-to book. But in a series of essays, Goleman offers research and examples spotlighting the "elusive and under-appreciated mental faculty" of attention.

Goleman says leadership and a well-lived life require you to be nimble at focusing your attention in three ways: on yourself, on others and on the wider world:

Focusing on yourself.

It is now recognized that effective leaders typically have a high degree of what Goleman labeled "emotional intelligence." And an essential component of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. You are self-aware if you can recognize your moods and emotions and understand their impact on other people. More elements of emotional intelligence are self-management, empathy and social skills like relationship building and networking.

Goleman is intrigued by the synergy between emotional intelligence and increasingly popular approaches to training attention, like promoting "mindfulness." One way to understand mindfulness is to consider the alternative -- mindlessness -- that occurs when our minds wander and we lose track of where we are. Mindfulness training helps us build the capacity to stay in the moment and choose where we want to send our focus.

Goleman describes a mindfulness program where second graders learned to become more relaxed and able to focus on their work as a result of regular deep breathing exercises. The children lie on their backs and listen quietly as they are led through deep belly breathing. They silently count "one, two, three" with each long inhalation and exhalation. Not only can children learn in this way to be more self-controlled and aware of how they are feeling, but so can adults of any age.

Focusing on others

Excellent leaders tend to be the ones who keep some focus on other people. They try to understand things from others' perspectives. And they have the ability to sense what others are feeling and to recognize what they need.

People who lack social sensitivity are easy to spot. They may be bullies or simply unaware of those around them. Goleman says that as we move into leadership we must be aware of a trap. Research suggests that as we climb up a hierarchy we tend to lose our focus on lower ranking colleagues. But where a leader is able to maintain a balanced focus, including empathy, the result can be greater employee engagement and better team results.

Focusing on the wider world

Goleman urges today's leaders to take a wider view, to consider the environmental and worldwide economic implications of whatever they may be doing. He says leaders with a strong focus on the big picture are not only good listeners but also good questioners. They step back from immediate challenges and take a longer view. They inspire innovation by making new connections within patterns that at first may seem to be unrelated.

Balanced leadership requires systems thinking, but it is seldom easy. Goleman says that a blind spot in the human brain may contribute to the problem. Our ability to focus in and fine tune is part of the apparatus that has paid off in human survival. But our brains haven't evolved to think about huge systems, and learning to do so can be exhausting.

Sometimes it's not easy to know where to focus, whether on immediate problems or the broader future. But Goleman says we can build the ability to focus our attention, and get better at making choices about where to look.

Number 201

Do you have professional and other goals in mind for the year? For the future? So what's your plan?

It can be motivating to have a broad, enticing vision, but it can also be daunting. Sometimes people put off their biggest objectives and most exciting projects because they don't even know where to begin.

To get started and keep moving toward your goals, think about ways to establish specific benchmarks and measure your progress. For example, if you propose to write a book, you might commit to writing a certain number of words each week or month.

Maybe you are one of those folks who have heard about the power of measurable goals more times than you can count. But you're still not convinced. Maybe metrics strike you as time-consuming or boring, or you think some values can't be quantified? Before you give up on the idea of making your goals measurable, consider these points:

• Measuring creates awareness. If you regularly measure something, you tend to keep it in mind. So if you're trying to develop a habit, coming up with and applying a metric will help you to keep on the path. For example, research says that if you decide to eat less in order to lose pounds, you are more likely to stick to your diet if you regularly weigh yourself and chart your weight. And it's the same for organizations. Studies suggest that, in businesses, government units and non-profits, attention tends to focus on the things that get evaluated.
• Quantity can lead to quality. When you count positive steps, you are likely to take more of them. And the more you practice an activity, the better you get at it. One of the first in a series of books focused on the power of practice is Geoff Colvin's "Talent Is Overrated." Colvin examined research about "what really separates world-class performers from everybody else." He concluded that great performers -- whether in music, sports or business -- are the ones who practice intensely. Quantity doesn't always lead to quality, but often the more times you do something, the more you learn. And when learning is involved, quantity leads to quality.
• Measurement can foster self-control. "If you can measure it, you can manage it." That quote is often attributed to management guru Peter Drucker, but his take on measurement in the workplace was actually more nuanced. He saw a danger that measurement "could be used to control people from the outside and above -- that is, to dominate them." He suggested that the better use of measurement is to "make self-control possible." He thought metrics should be used by every manager "to appraise his own skill and performance and to work systematically on improving himself."
• Measurement can replace micro-management. As a coach, I've encountered many situations where managers want to delegate but can't seem to do it. Sometimes they hover annoyingly over a project because they want a better sense of how it's going. But when the manager and the project leader are able to come up with the right metrics, suddenly the problem disappears. A good measurement and reporting system can create transparency. Then it becomes easier both to solve problems and to recognize progress. And, when you begin to demonstrate your achievements, it's easier for your manager to let go.

At times we are slow to create a measurement system because we don't know what to measure. It is not always easy to quantify the impact or value of your work, but the process of selecting metrics can contribute to your ultimate success. Choosing your approach to keeping track requires you to ask important questions. The first step may be to break a large goal into pieces. Then you'll want to consider which factors actually matter.

Suppose your New Year's Resolution is to get to the office earlier. You start to build a picture by recording your daily arrival times. And then you begin to wonder: why is it harder to be prompt on some days than on others? So you expand your log to record your bedtime, your hours of sleep and whether you lay out your next day's clothes before going to bed. You notice the patterns and eventually you change your evening routine. You start getting out of the house sooner, and your commitment to arrive at work earlier is reinforced by that ping of pride each morning when you record the time you hit your desk.

It can be useful to experiment a bit as you choose data to show how you're doing. As you explore options, consider these three approaches to measuring progress toward your goals.

• Measure progress toward actually completing the mission. Some goals can be framed in numerical terms, which makes progress easy to chart directly. Suppose, for example, that you want to raise your profile by energizing your blog. It's a simple matter to set numerical targets, like the number of posts you intend to publish this year.
• Count important activities. Often major factors impacting completion of your mission are beyond your control. So observe the things you can control. Determine which activities are most likely to contribute to your success, and start measuring them. For example, perhaps you are trying to attract new donors for your foundation, but economic trends may limit your success. Get moving by identifying the most important fundraising steps toward your goal, like calling supporters and hosting events. A direct measurement approach would count outputs from your work process, like the number of dollars raised per month. But the measures that kick you into gear might be those that track your inputs to the process -- your actions -- like the number of people you call and the time you spend talking with prospects.
• Create capacity. Complex goals may require a staged approach to measurement. Often you can't start racking up actual results until you put the tools, systems and resources in place. If your goal requires something big, like creating a task force, map out key milestones, like recruiting the team. Your first stage of evaluation will be to monitor completion of the capacity build-out.

  Want to be more strategic as you set your goals? From the archives, here's an ezine on thinking strategically as you set your goals.

A longtime client I’ll call “Betty” asked me to give a talk about how to survive in an organization that’s going through a multi-year transition.

I was pleased to speak at the company where Betty is a manager. But when she told me the topic, I was surprised. That’s because I can’t think of anybody more adept than Betty at navigating a rewarding career through an industry experiencing prolonged restructuring. She has survived multiple mergers, division liquidations and realignments. And she’s been adept at jumping ship and making a great landing at the perfect time.

Then I realized that Betty was concerned about her colleagues. She saw some of them worrying and whining, instead of coming up with her kind of survival strategies. So without mentioning Betty’s name, I used her as a model as I developed a list of tips for surviving in the midst of transition.

If you work in an organization going through widespread change, try these tips for steering a steady career course even when it gets stormy:

• Know it’s not about you. Institutional change is like stormy weather. It’s pouring everywhere, not just on you. Complaining won’t help and bitterness can make your situation worse. It’s vital to survival that you look at the big picture and let go of any anger at finding yourself in a game you didn’t sign up for.
• Understand your industry and its environment. One reason Betty keeps landing on her feet is that she puts in the time to understand her company’s business. She knows a lot about its competitors, she’s alert to the needs and interests of its customers, and she’s well informed about broader regulatory and economic developments. By thinking like a CEO, she can spot the trends and be ready when the next wave hits.
• Know your bosses’ goals. Your longtime supervisor may fondly recall your contributions from a few years back, but that may not be enough to save you when the going gets tough. Your most valued colleagues are the ones solving today’s problems and contributing to the achievement of tomorrow’s goals. If you want to do well this year, be sure you understand your bosses’ big objectives. Ask yourself: what do they need in order to be successful? And are there more ways I can help them succeed?
• Network! Network! Network! One reason Betty does so well is because she is so widely connected. Whether you are looking for a new job or a new idea, your position will be stronger if you have a wide circle of professional acquaintances. Join groups, volunteer for projects and find other ways to get to know people throughout your organization and beyond it.
• Find stability in other places. Some folks are less at ease with uncertainty than others. If the constant state of change at work is getting you down, find people and communities to rely upon in other aspects of your life. Although she can be a bit of a workaholic, Betty is smart about building a balanced life. She is active in her church, she works hard to stay connected with many friends, and she finds the time to visit family members scattered across the country. Betty has created structures in her life that give her a place to rest when everything at work seems crazy.
• Be in great shape. Let’s face it: change can be exhausting. When the world seems to be shifting it takes extra energy just to get through the basics. So, while working around the clock might be the answer in an emergency, it’s a shortsighted strategy when transition is the new normal. You need sustained energy for the long haul. Betty is not an athlete, but she has learned that a regular fitness routine and enough sleep are critical to strong performance during difficult times.
• Reduce financial pressures. One thing that has helped Betty keep her jobs is that she has never become desperate at the thought of losing one. Betty dreamed of buying a larger home, but instead she kept the small one and invested her savings in rental properties. When times are uncertain, do what it takes to build up your rainy day fund or alternative income sources.